Large entities typically own and operate large numbers of computing devices. Such computing devices may include laptop computers, desktop computers and servers. These computing devices require software products to operate.
Software products often require “patches”—which may include downloadable software—to fix errors that exist in the software products. A patch is commonly understood to refer to a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update, a computer program or its supporting data. This may include fixing security vulnerabilities, and other “bugs” and/or improving the usability and performance of a software product.
Patches for software products are typically distributed to purchasers of a software product as executable files instead of as source code. This type of patch may modify a binary file associated with an executable program resident at a user device, and/or completely replace it.
Patches can also be distributed in the form of source code modifications.
Typically, patches refer to limited software fixes. Large fixes may include different nomenclature such as “service packs” and/or “software updates.” For the purposes of this application, the term patch may be understood to collectively refer to all limited software fixes, service packs and/or software updates.
Large entities may be purchasers of the software products. Large entities may be tasked with installing the patches and deploying the patches on large numbers of laptop computers, desktop computers and/or servers and/or other computing devices such as, for example, handheld devices.
It is important for administrators of such large entities to maintain control over installation and deployment of patches in order to avoid resource consumption issues and/or or other relevant issues associated with large scale patch installation and deployment. Specifically, administrators may apply patches preferably only after they have verified the stability of such patches.
It would be desirable to support large scale installation and deployment of such patches through detailed reporting of such installation and deployment [across multiple computing devices].
It would be desirable to support installation and deployment of such patches